Well that's a dandy eye catching box if I ever saw one. And this fly was trapped.
"The best deal in videogame history" - IGN.com
Well we'll get to that..
This is a pack of 5 games for Rs. 999/- wonly
- Half Life 2
- HL 2 Episode One
- HL 2 Episode Two
- Portal
- Team Fortress 2
What the hell, these people are selling me blank DVDs inside nice sealed orange boxes. Tried the same discs on my laptop. Atleast i can see the files on the disc now. I'm saved... Try copying it. CRC error. After some hours of relentless trying I give up. I am already ruing the fact that I had the worms to go buy this with my money.
Next day I put the discs in my bag - plan to return them for exchange where I bought it. I had already been there with Peter Pan's CD the day before. Satyam is dishing some bad discs - dunno who to blame, the publishers who use bad media or the retailers. Anyways on a hunch i try the DVDs on my friends desktop and it works. It actually copied the file that was giving me a CRC error. I ask him to burn both discs to ISOs and pray like I haven't prayed for in a long time.
DONE !!!!
Run back home and burn them onto my blanks Woo hoo !!
Moral :
Why was I punished for buying legitimate stuff ? A friend pointed me to this link.. http://forums.erodov.com/showthread.php?t=2910
- Seems like the publishers World Wide CD ROMS had a problem at the replicating factory. One-off incident they say. They can't refund your money - Coz you have already seen the central server - Valve serial key inside the box. You could misuse it after returning your box. Replication from good master disks is supposed to take a month+.
- I dont think my retailer would have replaced the disks. So if my discs were totally screwed up beyond all repair, i would have been at equation
So now it makes me wonder -
- all this hoopla about piracy.. are you really make it feasible to people who are willing to pay ? I'm not gonna buy a game from that place anytime now. Nor from that publisher unless they send me replacements. I'm feeling like a dork for not downloading and playing cracked ones for no cost or pain like everyone else.
- where is the QA on the stuff that these people are selling ? 1000 bucks for 2 dead discs is highway robbery.
- A little net scouting reveals that there are many ppl who bought these defective disks. If the publisher knows this - why aren't the unsold boxes being recalled either for a check or replacement. They are knowingly selling boxes that they know have a high probability of containing dead media.
- Customer Service ?? I call up their place 4 times and I'm put on a telephone line that thinks it is part of SETI - weird noises like a dialup modem is all I get. So much for customer service. Why did they even print their number at the back of the box ?
[Update]
Well the money has been well spent as of now. Just started with Half Life 2 and its like the next step in evolution.. The Box seems to be have something of a bonus in Half Life : Lost Coast... 6 games man!
Keeping aside the fact that the discs should have worked since I paid money for them...
"Steam" which is Valve's online distribution system - allows you to download the games that you have paid for. You need an internet connection to activate your account with the serial.. but once done, you can download the install files for the games that you have paid for.
Small bug - the first time, Steam tried to download the files over the network instead of installing from the DVDs. Over a net connection like mine, that would have taken ages... Little online reading goes a lonng way. What you need to do is Update-Install Steam, create your account and exit Steam once. Again eject-pop in the DVD. Autoplay Splash Screen - Say install. Choose the game you want from the Steam screen listing "My Games" and choose Install. The second time, it is able to see that the DVD already has the files and installs from the local media.